IN SEED AND SONG, I AM AN IMMORTAL; SERIOUSLY

TURRITOPSIS DOHRNII - THE IMMORTAL JELLYFISH

I’ve decided to become an Immortal, a decision that did not come easy.  For many years The Grand Trunk Troubadours, a community service band (of which I am the only founding member) has performed on retirement community stages literally hundreds of times, and the end of each performance confirms for me that I shall never choose such a circumstance.  First of all, I’m not a real fan of hanging ‘round those in my peer age group. I’m an extrovert and love chatting with all kinds of people of different ages (and different incomes). And second, I like to eat when I want to eat; I do not want toe be herded along to eat according to schedule.  There is no finer dining than eating sandwiches curbside after a busk. 

Anyway, once I become an Immortal, I will not be alone.  Turritopsis dohrnii, the immortal jellyfish, beat me to it.  The turritopsis dohrnii defy death.  Instead of dying they continuously transform themselves back to an earlier state.  Hmmm …  I cannot see myself doing that, but I can see myself (slowly) getting old and finally settling on a perfect age.  Hmm … I’m thinking when I get to 75 I’ll linger there at least a couple hundred years before committing to a higher number.

To become an Immortal relies on mainly two simple life endeavours, SEED and SONG.

• SEED

Being the ever existentialist I believe that the Anthropos sole purpose on this planet is to procreate and continue the species.  Situated atop of the animal food chain, procreation is rather an easy enterprise to accomplish.  Because this is our only purpose explains why everyone (most everyone) strives to look good physically. It is simply an adherence to the law of attraction, the law of physical attraction.  Everyone wants a mate of some sort.

Allow me some inductive reasoning.  Allow me to pass judgment on everyone based only upon my personal behaviours.  Attempting to look good I run everyday, I lift weights everyday, and I practice martial arts once a week.  In such attempts to look good my goal is to keep my percentage of body fat contained to single digits.  Any percentage below 10 shall suffice.  These were my behaviours before finding a mate.  (Forty years later I’ve the same mate and the same behaviours.) 

I am so lucky I’ve so undeservedly inherited the height and the hair.  To attribute my looking-glass-self to my behaviours would be delusional and a complete disregard to the reality of human genetics.  That said, a combination of genetics and narcissism works for me!

And so it didn’t just so happen that I have three grown children. Presumably the Child seed will continue through the ages right alongside my immortality.

• SONG  

Writing and performing only original folk songs keeps me akin and on the stage with several other singer-songwriters.  At least four times a year we (my familiar association of Regina singer-songwriters most of whom being not even half my age – rather they are representative of the with it young folks of wealth and fashion, the jeunesse doree so to speak) gather at the BUSHWAKKER BREW PUB and strum on our acoustic guitars and sing our hearts out for these two and a half hour gigs. We strum and sing only original and contemporary folk songs.  In those stage moments I, too, am with it. We (my gig mates and self) represent and criticize, I believe, the current zeitgeist of our community! Whatever is trending in the popular culture is always challenged and at times contradicted in folk music.

Writing such songs keeps me contemporary and creative.  Singing such songs keep my confidence up, conquering stressful urgency of public performance.  (As an immortal one cannot be confined to the shadows when forever attempting to sway and influence all of the people one audience at a time to make my world more tolerable for selfish me.)  And please keep in mind that as an Immortal I have endless hours and days and years to practice.  Perfect practice makes perfect performance and so eventually I'll have a hit song or two or three.

Beyond my SEED and SONG strategy, I’ll complement my immortality strategy with SCRIPT and STRENGTH and SUSTENANCE. 

• SCRIPT

I’ve a blog, of course, in which I offer psychological thoughts and opinions on practically everything.  I also have a website (NEIL CHILD HYPNOTHERAPY) which I wrote and re-write and re-write and re-write.

Scripts are important.  A long ago professor of mine, Peter Hemingway (Psychology) whenever asked for his opinion on something always expressed the same response: “I’ve absolutely no opinion unless I’ve written about it.” Well this happens to be where I am now.  I’ve a rule never to talk about things I don’t know much about and if ever I do talk about things, it’s because I’ve written about these things.  And I have, indeed, written about lots of things.  And, similar in thought to my eventually hitting the top 10 charts in my songs, if I keep writing and revising and revising and revising I'll no doubt have at least one or two or three best sellers over the next few hundred years.

• STRENGTH

Just a few paragraphs ago I took the opportunity to brag a bit about my level of fitness.  I mentioned that I’ve always done so, that I was virilely and seductively fit to seek a mate and seed.  Now my quest, since I’ve decided to become an immortal, is to be quantum fit down to the tune of 160 pounds.  Fitness to seed 170 pounds was sufficient; fitness for immortality a reduction to 160 pounds is necessary.  At 160 pounds I should have six-pack abs in no time (no time being within the the next few decades for sure).

Practising meditation, I’ve found, helps me with my quantum fitness goals.  One needs to focus on fitness to acquire fitness.  Not-so-strangely I’ve discovered the best meditation (for me) is in the practice of martial arts.  Hmmm … as a young man I was a student of KARATE.  As a forty-something I was a students of TAI CHI.  And as a fifty-something, I discovered (for myself) MUAY THAI. (I’m not really into physical fighting but I quite love the study of physical fighting in regard of the technical and the psychological aspects.)

• SUSTENANCE

I shall indulge only according to the Mediterranean Diet as promoted by Harvard Medical School.  With the emphasis on eating lots of vegetable, fruits, nuts, and whole grains, moderate amounts of fish and poultry, and a glass of wine with meals, this diet not only fits the bill but is rather easy to digest. The Mediterranean diet even tolerates red or processed meats (I love to barbeque and drink beer on sunny afternoons), most dairy products, snacks and sweets and all those things that taste great but are bad for you. Yes, I’m a gluttonous fan of the Mediterranean diet and have previously written about it in poem.  See my blog entry, BLUEHAIRS AND BLUE ZONES, November 26, 2018:

Grains and greens and nuts and beans,

And sweet potatoes in between

Long walks.

They say you only live once and so I’m thinking hmmm … this is true so I should make my life last forever. Some would say that an everlasting life on earth would be accursed, especially if living to a couple hundred years means looking a couple hundred years wrinkled. That, in vampire fashion, would totally SUCK; hence, the regimen short checklist of fitness and nutrition for either slowing, or in my personal case, stopping, the process of aging and dying.   

Contrary to the vampire plan mine would be rather plummy.  I can imagine being able to play chess whilst at the same time drawing my opponent's portrait.  I can imagine guitar busking whilst at the same time performing street hypnosis. As an Immortal I'd have centuries to practices such concurrent skill sets!

And take note that my strategy to become an Immortal is working!  I am the living proof of this! I have walked the earth now for 69 years and everyone who knows me has to admit that right now ... 

SO FAR SO GOOD ...

I AM AN IMMORTAL!